This is my second cruise and my first on RCCL. My family chose RCL because they were cheaper and had heard so many good things about them. We live in New York and the cruise was out of Fort Lauderdale and went to St. Thomas, St. Maarten and Nassau. We sailed in the second to last week of August 2001.
On the day of the cruise we flew from Kennedy Airport to Fort Lauderdale- Hollywood Airport. We arrived at the airport at about 1:00. We met the RCL agent.....well she had a sign that said EOS....we first went to the wrong one because it was the explorer of the seas.....we met the lady and she told us to sit down and fill out our forms...and she got a wheelchair for my grandmother who walks with a cane and was very tired. Filing out the forms occupied most of our time. We finished and got on a little bus. There were too man people so some of them waited for another one to come. We got to the terminal at about 1:45 p.m. When we arrived it looked like everyone was already on the ship. Embarkation was a breeze. There was no one there. We where on the ship within 15 minutes. They man helping us was so nice....but he was trying to persuade my aunt into letting me get a charge card...she kept saying no...he kept saying "u sure???"...i kept saying "please???":( ..........it was funny to me at least.)
We then got on our ship and went to our stateroom on Deck 4. (Ocean View with 2 beds and 2 pullmans) We went to the lifeboat drill and it was hot and sticky and muggy... It took such a long time. When I went on the Destiny it did not take as long as this one did. While we where at the lifeboat drill, i noticed i could not spot one single kid besides my cousin and I. I panicked....We went back to the stateroom and we were looking at the t.v. when I realized the ship was moving.....They could have made an announcement, at the least. So we ran to the top deck and I got the camcorder and was filming when I realized I was in the back of the ship....Unlike Carnival it doesn't have the big smokestack to differentiate.